First united in skepticism, then in matrimony

Activist couple was made for each other - but not for matrimony. Somehow love, and absurdity, prevailed.

Alix Wall

Updated
12:43 pm PST, Tuesday, February 18, 2014

San Francisco couple Levana Saxon and Casey Harrell got married Sept. 28 in Sebastopol. The bride went for a 1920s diva look with a silver beaded dress custom made by San Francisco's Decades of Fashion. The local and pesticide-free flowers were arranged by her friends. less

San Francisco couple Levana Saxon and Casey Harrell got married Sept. 28 in Sebastopol. The bride went for a 1920s diva look with a silver beaded dress custom made by San Francisco's Decades of Fashion. The ... more

Photo: Bernadette Pollard Photography

Photo: Bernadette Pollard Photography

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San Francisco couple Levana Saxon and Casey Harrell got married Sept. 28 in Sebastopol. The bride went for a 1920s diva look with a silver beaded dress custom made by San Francisco's Decades of Fashion. The local and pesticide-free flowers were arranged by her friends. less

San Francisco couple Levana Saxon and Casey Harrell got married Sept. 28 in Sebastopol. The bride went for a 1920s diva look with a silver beaded dress custom made by San Francisco's Decades of Fashion. The ... more

Photo: Bernadette Pollard Photography

First united in skepticism, then in matrimony

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Let's say you find that the traditional narrative around marriage is problematic and that its exclusion of same-sex couples until recently is only part of the problem.

Let's say that in your work with illegal immigrants, you've seen how marriage cannot protect one member of a family from being deported. You've seen how married couples often succumb to old-fashioned gender roles. Then there's the price gouging, where vendors conspire to make one day the most costly of your life. There's the "princessification" of women, diamonds that support civil war in Africa, the societal message that a woman isn't complete without a man. The list goes on.

Let's say you've held these values for so long that you don't think you'll ever buy into the whole marriage thing. But then you meet someone. And even though you don't need a piece of paper to prove anything, you want your union celebrated by your community. What do you do then?

If you're San Francisco couple Levana Saxon and Casey Harrell, the night before your wedding, you hold a ritual called "The History of Marriage: An Absurdist Theatrical Ceremony to Counter Heteronormative Patriarchy."

But first, a bit about how these two met. Levana, 36, is an education and training consultant for the Practicing Freedom Collective and the Movement Strategy Center, working on social and environmental issues. Casey, 35, is a communications and campaign consultant for nonprofits raising awareness about climate change.

In 2007, both of them were tapped by a Petaluma high school student to speak at a teach-in on climate change. Given the distance, it wasn't a priority for Levana. A colleague of Casey's committed, then flaked, leaving him to do it.

During a call to discuss logistics, their chemistry was such that as soon as Levana hung up, she told her housemate, "I hope this guy is really cute and single."

The student gave them one pomegranate tree between them, as a token of thanks. Given Casey's sublet, he told Levana to take it, saying he wanted visitation rights.

She planted the tree at her mother's house.

Casey told his housemate that he'd met a woman totally out of his league.

"You never say that. You should go for it," his housemate said.

Given how many friends they had in common, both say it was strange they hadn't met before. In fact, a week after their meeting, they saw each other at a friend's birthday party that Casey attended with a horrible cold, just to see Levana again.

"I found a true match for me in the things I care most about," Casey said. "She experiences life fully, wearing her ideals and emotions on her sleeve."

"We share a worldview and sense of humor which makes it easy to connect on the issues that matter most," Levana said. "But we're also opposites in many ways, so we're continuously learning new things about each other."

Their engagement was by mutual discussion.

At their wedding weekend, on private land in Sebastopol, it was important to them that all of their reservations about marriage be included. In fact, they felt they couldn't marry without airing them.

As much care and attention, if not more, went into planning this ritual as did planning their wedding ceremony. On Friday evening, after those guests camping had set up their tents, they began with Casey on a platform labeled "Soapbox."

"Our aim was to talk about what parts of the past and present we wanted to cast away and what we wanted to hold on to," Levana said.

Added Casey: "It's amazing what you can get away with at your own wedding."

The performance began in the 1700s. While the couple stood in a wedding-like pose, friends held large "thought bubbles" behind them. One of Casey's thought bubbles read, "Great. I get free labor out of this"; one of Levana's read, "Finally, my virtue will be protected."

After traveling through different eras, the couple ended with a futuristic period where participants called out the vision of marriage they'd like to see. Then guests wrote outdated notions about marriage on slips of paper and burned them. Traits they wanted to keep were written on paper hearts that were clipped onto a clothesline for the rest of the weekend.

Their ceremony, on Sept. 28, was led by two close friends. The bride began her vows by pledging to stay true to her own heart and cherish herself, thereby coming to marriage as a whole person.

Much of their vegan, gluten-free celebration was offered at cost or donated.

Tiles had been distributed to guests, and they were asked to imbue their blessings onto them. Guests then placed the tiles in a glass, which later the bride's mother made into a mosaic of a pomegranate tree in bloom. The tree the student gave them recently bore fruit for the first time.